“Under this logic, the victim of a car theft could be assessed a fine to help defray the cost to taxpayers relating to the city's handling of the stolen vehicle," Brian Bucaro, retail vice president for grocery store operator Piggly Wiggly Midwest, said in a letter to the city opposing the proposed ordinance.

There already is an ordinance on the books relating to shopping carts, but the new proposal adds the requirement for anti-theft systems.

“Proposing additional expense and fines against a company that has been the victim of a crime makes absolutely no sense,” said Timothy Hogan, president of Lisbon Foods Inc., which operates the Sentry Foods store at 9210 W. Lisbon Ave.

Under the proposal, retailers who do not install anti-theft systems would face a fine of $500 to $1,000 “per unprotected shopping cart” after two “retrievals of abandoned carts” by the city.

“The entire concept of this ordinance is backwards thinking with the idea of punishing businesses for the actions of criminals,” Michael Bousis, president of Cermak Fresh Market, said in a letter to city officials. “The blame needs to be placed on people committing crimes, not on businesses providing hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars in tax revenue.”

Members of the Common Council, according to city documents, believe “abandoned shopping carts blight neighborhoods, reduce property values, obstruct pedestrian and vehicular traffic in the public rights-of-way, and constitute a hazard to the health, safety and general welfare of the city.”

Businesses don’t necessarily disagree, but many say requiring expensive anti-theft technology is not the answer.

The Milwaukee-based Roundy’s division of the The Kroger Co. said the company has already installed cart containment systems at three of its nine stores in the city.

The systems use radio frequency technology and locking wheel technologies to try to prevent cart theft. The per-store installation cost for the system is $40,000, said James Hyland, a Roundy’s spokesman.

“Persistent thieves will either break the wheel lock mechanism or drag the cart off premises with the wheels locked,” Hyland said.

The company is also switching to plastic carts at its Milwaukee stores to eliminate metal carts’ being stolen and sold for scrap.

Other businesses say they work to keep their carts in check but agree that anti-theft systems are of limited help.

“We spend countless hours every year driving the neighborhood and picking up carts illegally removed from our property,” Hogan, of Lisbon Foods, said in his letter.

“Cart security systems are terribly expensive and quite frankly, do not work,” he said. “These systems would cost our business at least $30,000 to install, and are simply ignored by thieves.”

Still others said they have customers who do not drive and often use carts to get their groceries home.

“We have many elderly customers who ask to use our carts to get their groceries home, as they do not drive and walk to our store,” Hogan said.

El Rey Foods makes a similar argument.

“We do not encourage patrons to take carts off the property, but we do feel there are appropriate times to allow our customers to borrow a cart,” Nelson Lang, general manager of El Rey Foods, said in a letter to the city.

The company has an employee who searches each day for carts and retrieves any he finds.